Kurdish Forces Seize Dozens of Villages Around Kobane

Saturday, 7 February 2015

Kurdish Forces Seize Dozens of Villages Around Kobane

Published Friday, February 6, 2015

Syrian Kurdish fighters have seized scores of villages from Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) jihadist group around the town of Kobane on the Turkish border, expanding their control in the area, a monitor said Friday.

The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) captured 101 Syrian villages around Kobane since seizing the town from ISIS on January 26 after four months of fighting, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

According to Kurdish ARA news agency, Kurdish forces have regained control over more than 50 villages from ISIS, while Kurdish Rudaw website put the number at 42.

"They now control territory ranging from 15 to 25 kilometers (nine to 16 miles) from Kobane to the east, west and south," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The small town became a key battleground, with ISIS poised at one point to overrun it and cement its grip on a large stretch of territory along the border.

Since January 26, YPG forces have advanced steadily in the surrounding countryside, recapturing dozens of villages, some no larger than a few dozen homes.

In some villages, they met little resistance, with ISIS fighters withdrawing as they advanced.

But in other places there have been clashes, with the Observatory saying at least 13 ISIS fighters were killed in a YPG ambush Friday.

The Kurdish advance marked the culmination of a battle lasting more than four months in which nearly 1,800 people were killed, including nearly 1,200 ISIS fighters and large numbers of foreign fighters.

Civilians were largely spared in the fighting because the town's residents evacuated en masse, mostly across the border into Turkey, in the early stages of the battle.

ISIS had poured some of its best foreign fighters into Kobane, according to a US State Department official, but in the last six weeks the losses had begun to cause splits in the ranks.

A victory in Kobane was an important milestone in trying to change the narrative of the militants, who have attracted thousands of foreign fighters to their ranks, mostly disaffected youth drawn by the promise of adventure.

Analysts say the loss of Kobane is both a symbolic and strategic blow for ISIS, which set its sights on the small town in a bid to cement its control over a long stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border.

Since ISIS emerged in its current form in 2013, it has captured large swathes of territory in both Syria and Iraq.

It has declared an Islamic "caliphate" in territory under its control, and gained a reputation for brutality, including executions and torture.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)